I will do Mr. C. Leon Harris the courtesy of assuming his letter (July 22) was meant humorously. Which view of climate change is correct, that of John McClaughry’s friends Spencer and Christy, or the other 99 percent of climate scientists? It’s true that scientific research will provide a better answer than politics. It’s also true that the next few decades will tell the tale, and that by then “the verbal barbs between left and right will all seem pretty silly.”

The only trouble is that if the 99 percent are even close to right, the whole world will at that point be in deep (and probably irredeemable) doo-doo. But this has to be a joke, right? For the sake of “rational” discourse, I certainly hope so.